It Wasn't Me

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I looked at the lights at the back of the house, then shrugged. “I guess just try to make your way over there. Go slow.”

  So my father did, taking it slow, and coming to a stop behind the fence that encircled the back yard.

  “You can’t even see the headlights the grass is so tall,” I snickered. “I doubt he would’ve told us to take this way if he thought it was this high.”

  “Probably not,” my father admitted, staring at the back of the house. “Let me walk you out.”

  I snorted.

  “Ummm, no,” I said. “You stay here.”

  Dad ignored my order as he got out of the truck.

  I just sighed and rounded the hood of the truck, going to the gate that was at the back of the fence that I knew was there.

  Turning my phone light on, I managed to locate it, then push inside.

  “This is prime snake hanging area,” my father grumbled as he followed behind me.

  I silently agreed and kept my eyes on the ground as we moved through the knee-deep grass.

  “He needs to mow,” my father grumbled.

  “I asked him if I could a few days ago, and he told me no.” I smiled at the memory. “He said he’d do it tonight, but then we made plans with the family. He has to work tomorrow, so I might see about getting that ride-on lawnmower to start.”

  “Don’t,” my father chuckled. “You might very well see your husband’s head explode.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know how to mow.”

  “I never said you didn’t,” Dad said. “What I am saying is that he doesn’t want you to, otherwise he would’ve agreed when you offered the first time. I…”

  A loud bang had both of us stilling.

  And, without a second thought to me or my dad, I started running around the house.

  Or I would have had my father not moved surprisingly quick and wrapped his arm around my waist.

  “You’re pregnant.”

  I wilted.

  I was pregnant.

  But that was a gunshot I’d just heard, and my husband was here somewhere.

  What the hell was going on?

  “Jonah?!” I yelled.

  Nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  I opened my mouth to yell it again when my father placed his hand over my mouth.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “Be quiet. Something is wrong.”

  No shit something was wrong.

  I’d just heard a gunshot and my husband wasn’t answering my calls.

  Of course, something was wrong!

  “If I let you go, you have to promise to stay still,” he said. “Stay right here and let me go investigate.”

  My heart was pounding in my throat, and though I wanted very much to go looking, I knew my father was right.

  Not only did I not have just myself to think about anymore, but I also knew that Jonah would be pissed if I’d come to investigate.

  Like, I’m going to never let you forget it, pissed.

  So, I nodded my head.

  “I’ll stay.”

  Dad looked at me once, then bent down and pulled a gun out of his walking cast—something that was a new fixture since he’d refused to stay off of his old cast. The doctor said that since he was going to walk on it with or without his approval, he would just go ahead and switch him over to the one he could safely walk with.

  I blinked.

  “What…”

  He pressed the gun into my hand. “Turn that light off. Hide in the shadows right there. Don’t move until I come back for you or Jonah does, okay?”

  I nodded once, then clicked the light off on my phone.

  With that, the night was plunged into darkness around me, and my father slinked off into the shadows like he was made to be a part of them.

  I didn’t even hear his walking boot creak as he moved, which was the scariest thing. I’d heard it throughout the entire drive as he’d shifted gears, and then when he’d been walking beside me through the long grass not even moments before.

  I closed my eyes and strained my ears, hoping to hear something, anything.

  But nothing, not even the sound of crickets or frogs, broke the silence.

  ***

  Sam

  I walked, feeling the twinge and protest of my ribs, keeping to the shadows as I made my way around the back of Jonah’s house.

  “Look what you made me do!” I heard a woman shriek.

  Jonah’s low, rumbled apology filled the air seconds later.

  “I can’t believe…look what you made me do!” she cried out. “Follow me, we’re going to find the well.”

  The well?

  “What well?” Jonah asked, sounding worried.

  I would be, too.

  It sounded like the woman was psychotic.

  Like she needed all of her screws tightened again because she was about to fall apart.

  “The well where the baby fetus is.”

  Oh, boy.

  Now she didn’t just sound like she was psychotic. She was psychotic.

  “I have no idea what you’re speaking of…and woman, get your shit together. You keep switching that gun from hand to hand like that with your finger on the trigger, and you’re going to accidentally shoot my head off,” Jonah grumbled.

  “No, I can’t do that,” she whispered. “I’ll never find the well then.”

  I paused when I finally rounded the house far enough to see the front porch.

  The light was on, illuminating not just Jonah’s worried face, but also the woman’s. The woman was dressed in a red dress. It was long and flowy and looked like one of those salsa dresses that was made to swish and flash out. Her hair was done up with copious amounts of curls on top of her head, and she even had a red flower pinned to her hair.

  She was beautiful.

  If I hadn’t heard her crazy ramblings, I would’ve thought she was incapable of harm. Hell, the gun in her hand pointed at Jonah wouldn’t have even made me nervous.

  But the crazy in her eyes, as well as the crazy pouring out of her mouth? Yeah, that I was scared about.

  “Let’s go.” She shook the gun at Jonah.

  Jonah sighed and began walking down the stairs, his hands up by his shoulders, and a look in his eyes that clearly said he’d rather snatch that gun out of her hand and shove it down her throat.

  I was surprised he wasn’t losing his shit yet.

  He didn’t strike me as the type to remain calm for long.

  “I said go!” the woman ordered.

  I took the gun out of the holster at the small of my back, and when the woman nearly was on top of me, I reached for the gun, twisted it, and disarmed her in all of three seconds.

  Her outrage at being disarmed was written all over her face, and when she took a leaping step toward me to grab my gun, Jonah caught her in a hold, twisted her, and then threw her onto the ground.

  “Piper okay?” Jonah asked, sounding pissed.

  “Fine,” I answered. “She’s…”

  “Right here,” Piper said softly. “I could hear what was going on. Everything okay?”

  Jonah looked over at Piper, and his second of inattention had us all going down.

  All of a sudden, the woman had a knife in her hand, and she was aiming it at Jonah’s throat.

  The commotion that she caused had me stepping back wrong and falling unceremoniously over a goddamn birdbath full of disgustingly foul water.

  Jonah took a knife to the thigh, falling backward onto his ass.

  The woman pulled the knife out of his thigh, and Jonah kicked her at the same time Piper took aim.

  That was when Piper put a bullet in the woman’s head.

  “Well, shit,” I said, looking at the mess.

  “I aimed for her shoulder, but you kicked her and…shit.”

  That was when Piper threw up.

  ***

  Jonah

  I was tired, my wi
fe was asleep in my lap, and I’d answered this man’s questions so many times that I had no clue if I could hold onto my patience much longer.

  “Why was she here?” the detective, his name was Rolf, asked again.

  “Jesus Christ, Rolf,” my brother growled. “He’s told you a hundred goddamn times what she was doing. And he’s put it word for word what she said. Swear to Christ. He can’t give you any more than he has.”

  Rolf shot my brother a quelling look, but Downy didn’t back down.

  “You’ve questioned him so long that his wife’s fallen asleep in his lap.” Downy pointed at Piper. “She was in an accident today. She found out that she’s pregnant, with triplets no less, and then had to deal with shooting that woman. You’ve gotten every piece of information there was to get. How about you do a little research into her…”

  “No need,” I heard from behind me as Jack, the man that I’d discussed working on my bike with, strolled into my house like he owned the place. “I went ahead and did some checking on this woman. Glad that you drew it out this long, it gave me some time to pull up everything that I could find.”

  I scoffed.

  But Downy was right. I was at the end of my patience. I wouldn’t be answering questions for much longer unless they officially put me under arrest.

  Jack had impeccable timing.

  “Brita Anthony Melbourne,” Jack said as he threw the stack of papers down onto the table separating me and Piper from Rolf.

  Rolf picked the papers up, but Jack continued to speak.

  “Thirty-two years old. Married Juarez Melbourne five years ago. Divorced after one. Property was sold to Jonah Crew. Melbourne dies of a suspicious heart attack, leaves everything to his final caretaker instead of his ex-wife, who was his only surviving family. Did a search on this property, too. Turns out during the war, there was a suspected train robbery, and all the findings from that robbery were buried near a well where a baby fetus was said to have been killed in.”

  Everybody was silent for a few seconds after they digested that news.

  “And this is all hearsay?” I found myself asking.

  Jack nodded.

  “Apparently he shared this information with his ex-wife and the caretaker,” Jack murmured. “That caretaker being my daughter, Catori.”

  Jack’s daughter was a home health nurse. She worked in and around town, and I’d met her when I’d brought my bike to Jack. She’d been in her company car and had smiled at Jack like he hung the moon.

  Catori walked in seconds later with her hands behind her back, looking like she was scared to death.

  Jack put his hand around her and said, “Go ahead and tell them what you told me.”

  “When Juarez was dying, he talked about some fortune that his father’s father buried on the property. Juarez told me that he talked frequently with his ex-wife about it, and how she was obsessed with finding it. Though, Juarez was convinced that it was just a tall tale that his father liked to tell people,” Catori explained. “From what he told me, Juarez thought his ex-wife was a bit overly obsessed with finding it. She used to call him every day while I was there and talk to him. I was there for an hour, but in that time, she’d call no less than six times.”

  Rolf snorted. “Typical woman.”

  Catori’s eyes focused on Rolf.

  Rolf stiffened.

  “As cool as this story is,” Rolf said then. “That woman still committed murder.”

  “I was stabbed in the thigh,” I said, pointing at my throbbing thigh. I’d been and gone from the doctor, and luckily where I was stabbed was mostly just flesh. Though, if she’d aimed upward and inside slightly, she would’ve caught me in the balls and I wouldn’t have been sitting here so patiently. “My wife did what she thought she needed to do. If I hadn’t kicked the woman in reaction to her stabbing me, she would’ve only sustained a flesh wound. My wife is a highly trained individual. She aimed for the woman’s shoulder.”

  “I don’t know…” Rolf said. “Pending further investigation, I do believe it’s safe to say that you will not be allowed back to work until…”

  “You can’t suspend him,” Luke, the chief of police, said as he walked into the room. “He’s one of my best officers. He also wasn’t involved in the shooting, his wife was. And, from what I’ve been hearing over the last five minutes, you’ve got nothing to hold them on. They’re free to go. Jonah, see you at work tomorrow.”

  I looked at the clock and winced when I read that it was two in the morning.

  “I think I might need to take the day off seeing as my shift starts at eight,” I said, sounding just as tired as I felt.

  “I’ll find someone to switch with you,” Captain Morgan said. “Your nephew has already offered.”

  I looked over at the doorway.

  “Go,” Luke said. “But you will be back on your regular shift the day after tomorrow.”

  I grinned then. “I will, sir.”

  With that, I took my woman home.

  She didn’t wake up when I put her in the car.

  She didn’t wake up when I took her out of the car.

  And she didn’t wake up when I tucked her into our bed.

  She did wake up when I pressed my body against her, but only long enough to say, “Love you, Jonah.”

  I thought I’d be wide awake after the day that I’d had.

  I thought that it’d take me hours to go to sleep.

  I was wrong.

  I slept like a baby and didn’t wake up until the next morning when my wife woke me with her mouth.

  Definitely the best way to wake up, hands down.

  Epilogue

  Before you marry a person, you should first make them drive you somewhere in the middle of rush hour traffic. That’s how you really get to know a person.

  -Jonah’s secret thoughts

  Jonah

  I pulled into the parking lot where the girls were going to gymnastics and grimaced at all the cars that filled almost every available parking spot.

  Literally, the only thing open that was anywhere close to the gym itself was a handicap spot.

  Just when I was about to pull out and go further down the lot into the next business over’s parking area, my wife started to back out of her spot in our Suburban.

  I grinned and pulled into the spot moments after she pulled out, then swung out of my truck.

  “You’re going to walk them over to the hospital to get it?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  One of the reasons that we’d chosen this particular gymnastics facility was due in part to the nearness of the hospital.

  Since it was so close, it meant that when I got off my shift, I could come straight here, and we could do the handoff.

  “Are they already inside?” I asked, my eyes flicking to the empty seats in the Suburban.

  “Yeah,” she answered. “I would’ve just left it here, but for some reason, everybody and their brother has decided to show up today. I’m fairly sure I saw about eight grandparents in there.”

  I snorted. “They’re proud.”

  She shrugged, then sighed. “Speaking of grandparents, my mom and dad are in there, as well as Hoax, Pru and their kids.”

  I snorted. “You mean everybody and the girls’ grandparents.”

  She shrugged. “They talked them into it. We were having Andy’s ice cream with my parents when Pru and Hoax showed. The girls asked them to come, and they did it in those sweet little voices of theirs so they couldn’t say no.”

  I scoffed.

  I knew better than anyone what those sweet little voices did.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll come switch vehicles with you when I’m done here. Are you sure that you’re wanting the dogs groomed?”

  Piper rolled her eyes and puckered her lips. “Give me a kiss and get in there. You know that they’re waiting for you.”

  I knew they were waiting for me, but I wanted to enjo
y my wife for a whole five seconds before she had to be at work for twelve hours and we had to do it all over again the next day.

  Though, tomorrow wasn’t gymnastics. Tomorrow was kids’ CrossFit.

  I honestly wasn’t sure what the hell Piper was doing trying to keep them as busy and active as she was, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. I loved that she was so active in the kids’ lives. And when we were too busy, or both of us had to work, or when we just wanted a day off, Piper’s parents or my mother stepped in. Or, hell, even my brother and sister did. Though they were last on the list, but they certainly didn’t love them the least.

  My kids were spoiled rotten.

  A banging on the glass had my eyes moving up to the gymnastics front window, and I sighed.

  “They’re awful,” I admitted. “It’s like they know when I want a kiss from you.”

  My wife of four and a half years snorted and puckered her lips. “Give me a kiss. I’m late anyway. I have a meeting with the day shift’s charge nurse.”

  I gave her a kiss, making sure to pay extra attention to her tongue when I did and caused her to laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

  I was.

  I was also horny as hell and hadn’t had my wife in my bed for over four days.

  Tomorrow was the last day of our busy time, and then it’d be smooth sailing for another three weeks until we were once again on this crazy schedule.

  Piper still worked the night shift, and my shifts changed as they’ve always done. This week I was on opposite shifts as her, but next week I’d be on the same shifts, though opposite times seeing as she’d be on during the night, and I’d be on during the day.

  Though we worked the same three days next week, that also meant that we’d have the same four days off together.

  Which worked for us.

  We weren’t the type of people that had to see the other to be comfortable in our relationship.

  Even more, we loved each other now as much as we loved each other when we first started our relationship.

  It’d stood the test of time. The test of two very demanding jobs. And three children—soon to be four.

  “They’re like lions on the hunt,” she shook her head. “You better go before they come out here.”